Queen (85 page)

    these were soldiers.

    She hit their hands away when they touched her, and spat in their faces,

    but her anger only seemed to excite them more.

"She wants to play," one said, laughing to his companions.

    "I know a game she'd like," another grinned. He grabbed at Queen and

    pulled her to him. He held her face with one hand, her body with the

    other, and kissed her. She tried to break her mouth away, but he was

    strong and his grip like a vise. His stubble grazed her face, his rough

    uniform chafed her body, and she could feel the hardness of him, at his

    groin, shoving against her. He pushed his tongue into her mouth. She

    tried to scream, tried to bite, but he was ready for that, and clutched

    his hand hard on her jaw, so she could not move it.

She heard a voice. "Don't touch her!"

    It was Cap'n Jack. He had a hefty stick in his hands, raised in the air,

    ready to strike.

    The soldier who was kissing Queen looked at him in surprise.

    QUEEN 517

"Who's this?" he laughed. "Your fancy man?"

    Cap'n Jack hit him across the shoulders with the stick, and they all turned

    on him. Desire for a pretty girl became lust for blood, and, methodically

    and efficiently, they beat him senseless, while Queen screamed her

    distress.

    When they were done, Queen ran to him, weeping, screaming for aid.

    "Help him, please," she begged Cap'n Jack's assailants. "He my gran'pappy."

    The beating had sated them, and when they heard of the family relationship,

    perhaps they were shamed, the sergeant at least. He called his men to

    order, and led them away.

    Queen ran to the slave quarters for help, and Isaac and Jeremiah had taken

    Cap'n Jack to his bunk, where Queen nursed him, and bathed his wounds. When

    Sally was told, she came to see him, and ordered that he be moved to a

    comfortable bed, in the big house. She complained to the captain, who

    apologized, reprimanded the men, and ordered the return of the Jackson

    cart. No further action was taken because Cap'n Jack had hit first.

No one thought he would live.

He did live, after a fashion, for a while. The worst of his external wounds

healed, but there was some internal damage. He was almost always in pain,

and was incontinent. His mind wandered, and he seldom knew where he was.

There was no physician to attend him; the local doctor had volunteered for

the war, and the medical student who was running the practice said nothing

could be done and prescribed laudanum.

    Queen took charge of him, washed him and bathed him, fed him and changed

    the sheets on his bed when they were soiled. Sally stayed with him when

    Queen could not. To everyone's surprise, Lizzie volunteered as well when

    Queen or Sally needed a break, although mostly she was busy tending the

    children, for Poppy had to run the household.

    For a time Cap'n Jack didn't seem to recognize Queen or Sally, and he

    seldom spoke, except for a few muttered words-"Annie" and "broke his

    promise." Toward April, he seemed to get a little better, as if the spring

    were renewing

518 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

him. He recognized people and things, and managed to speak, but the effort

of it obviously distressed him. He lay for hours holding Queen's hand,

gently caressing it with his thumb, and saying nothing. When Sally was

with him, he talked a little more, of the old days in Nashville, and of

the ol' Massa, and he always asked about Jass, who was a prisoner of war

and of whom there was little news. Talk of Jass's incarceration depressed

Cap'n Jack, and he would fall silent, and then mutter a few words of

friendship and happiness and youth.

    Sally understood his difficulty in speaking, and so she talked instead.

    She chattered endlessly about the old days in Nashville, when they were

    happy, of parties and picnics and pedigree horses, and of mutual friends,

    of Alfred, who lay in a tomb near his Massa now, loyal slave in life and

    death, of Chief Doublehead and Monkey Simon.

    "Gone. All gone," Cap'n Jack said. But he would not go himself. It was

    as if he were waiting for something, some signal that he could leave

    secure in the knowledge that the better day was coming for those he left

    behind, as he had always promised.

In early April, they began to hear gunfire. It was distant and muffled,

but incessant, continuous. It lasted for two days.

    It was the sound of a battle at Shiloh, over twenty miles away. Sometimes

    the relentless, dull noise caused the glass in the windows to rattle, and

    the crockery in the cupboards to shimmer. Lizzie heard it, and clutched

    her children to her. Mrs. Henderson heard it, and moved to the big house.

    Sally heard it, and prayed for the dead.

    Parson Dick heard it when he was washing dishes. A little tremor caused

    a cup to rattle on the table. It dropped to the floor and smashed. Parson

    Dick looked at the plate in his hand. He smiled. And when the cannon

    fired again, so many miles away, he threw the plate over his shoulder,

    and let it break where it landed. And another. And another. Parson Dick

    was laughing now.

    The slaves heard the noise when they were gathered around the campfire

    on that warm spring night, eating their evening meal.

"Awful close," said Davy.

    QUEEN 519

    "The closer it come, the closer my freedom," Jeremiah told him. Davy

    idolized Jeremiah. But not enough to run away with him.

"Oh, man, I's gwine get me some of that," Davy dreamed.

    Isaac dreamed of it, too, but was more practical. "An' what you gwine do

    with it, boy?" he asked Davy.

    "Get me a job," Davy said, surprised by the question. "Earn money."

    "You cain't do nuttin' 'cept pick cotton an' empty shit pans, an' yo' ain't

    too good at that," Isaac said, and the others laughed.

    Davy was angry; everyone was always laughing at him, when he tried so hard

    to please.

    "Go North," he sulked, knowing Isaac couldn't have an answer for that.

    Everybody talked about going North. The old people called it "Up South"

    which Davy thought was stupid.

    "An' beg fo' food, an' sleep in ditches?" Isaac burst Davy's bubble.

    "Hear tell the Feds is takin' on niggers to fight, payin' 'em, too,"

    Jeremiah said, to relieve the pressure on Davy. "Damn, I'd fight for

    freedom."

    "Let's do it, eh?" said Davy, who had a young man's energy.

    "Yeh, but yo' better get a good night sleep first, an' make sho' yo'

    belly's full," Isaac said. "Ask Jeremiah, he know about freedom."

    "It's a'comin', Isaac," Jeremiah replied, still embarrassed from his

    previous, failed attempt. "Yo' c'n laugh, but it's a'comin'. "

    "Yeh," Isaac agreed, dreamily, for he wanted it as much as any of them.

    "It's a'comin'."

    They drifted to sleep that night to the sound of the guns at Shiloh.

Queen heard the guns, and shivered in fear. Cap'n Jack heard them, and

almost smiled.

    "What is it, Gran'pappy?" Queen whispered. He mumbled something she

    couldn't quite catch, and leaned close to him.

    He tried to tell her, but it hurt to talk. He whispered words that he knew

    she did not hear, but leaned back on his pillow

520 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

and smiled. For even if she could not hear'him, he knew she could hear

that other sound, and that was all that mattered, for it was the most

glorious sound of all. It was the sound he had waited for all his life.

It was the herald of freedom.

    60

Still Cap'n Jack did not die. He seemed to be waiting for something more

than the sound of distant gunfire, and clung tenaciously to a tiny thread

of life. Whenever Sally went to see him, he asked about Jass, and she

began to understand that he could not bear the idea of his young Massa

being a prisoner. His mind had regressed to a happily remembered past.

Often delirious, he would mutter about the days when Jass was a boy, and

Cap'n Jack was closer to him than his own father. Confused and irrational,

he could not remember that Easter was dead, and talked of the joyous day

when Jass came home from the war to Easter. At other times, Jass became

confused in his mind with James when he was young, a golden, brawny, Irish

youth, who had engulfed Cap'n Jack in friendship and promised him his

freedom one day. Eventually, his memories always turned to Annie, and when

they did he became bitter, and fell silent.

    Queen spent as much time with him as she could. It was a relief to be

    with him, to escape from her many and increasing duties, for life was

    becoming, daily, it seemed, tougher for them, and the news from the war

    bleaker. Queen had schooled herself to understand that her gran'pappy was

    dying, and while it distressed her, she was no novice to death now.

    Besides, too many other new emotions were claiming attention from her

    heart.

    None of them had experience of war, or of this strange new world without

    Massas. The duties of life, of the house and plantation, fell

    increasingly upon the women, but it was not a

    QUEEN 521

life any of them understood. The white women had been brought up to

plenty, and scarcity was an alien burden. The slaves had been used to

discipline all their lives, and the present disorder of their existence

confused most, frightened some. They had existed without hope for tomorrow

for all of their lives, and while there was a hope now, of this intangible

freedom, it was as elusive as ever and as close as whispered rumors. It

was generally believed that it was only a matter of time, but how much

time, how long, 0 Lord, how long? The Yankees had come, but had not

brought freedom with them. The Rebels had retaken Florence, and the Union

troops had retreated to the northern side of the river. The slaves had no

understanding of the confusions of war, and lived on rumors of it, but

each rumor was contradicted by its successor, and so they clung to the old

ways and what they understood their lives to be, but again, without a

Massa and an overseer, the old order was gone, and no one celebrated its

temporary replacement. Some slaves, the younger men, had been pressed into

service by the Confederacy, not to fight but to dig for the sappers.

    Law and order, as such, had almost ceased to exist. Pillage and robbery

    were commonplace and rape was not rare. Bands of men, some in uniform,

    some not, but all armed, roamed the countryside, taking what they could,

    at will. To protect themselves against lawlessness, the entire community

    at The Forks of Cypress was united against the world, although that unity

    was as temporary as the weather, and would disintegrate at the first

    positive sign of what the future might be.

    They all held their breaths and went about their business, waiting for

    something to happen, even Cap'n Jack, and when it happened, it was

    double-edged.

It came to Jass first. Tom Kirkman brought the news to Sally on a warm

October day. Jass's imprisoned regiment had been exchanged with a Northern

unit. Jass was a free man again. Sally whispered a tiny prayer of thanks

for his deliverance, and waited for Tom to tell her the sweet news of her

son's return. It was not to be. Jass had been promoted to colonel of his

regiment, and was being sent south to Fort Hudson, near Vicksburg, in

Mississippi.

522 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    Tom had other news of freedom. Lincoln had announced his intention to sign

    a proclamation emancipating the slaves, in all the states, as if the

    Confederation did not exist.

    "He can't do that," Sally said, knowing that Lincoln could do anything he

    wanted.

    Tom smiled, and agreed with her statement and her thought. If it happened,

    it seemed likely that those slaves in Southern territories under Union

    control would be freed. He almost didn't care. He was tired, perpetually

    tired, and he could not shake off a chill he had caught.

    "Here?" Sally wondered, and Tom shrugged. Much of the area around Florence

    was held by the Federal Army, but battles raged for control of the river,

    both sides determined to hold what they had, and take what they had not.

    "Everywhere," Tom said. "I don't know how he intends to enforce it, but it

    will bring chaos to us, if it is true." Sally could not imagine how it

    would directly affect them, as part of the Confederacy, and she put aside

    concerns for what might happen in the future, and gloried in what had

    happened now. For Jass was free.

    She told Lizzie, who let out a shriek of joy, and went racing to tell the

    children, but then came running back to find out when Jass was coming home.